xxxi, 447 p. : 24 cm

"Drawing on the latest research on the atomic bomb and its history, the contributors to this provocative collection of eighteen essays set out to answer two key questions: First, how did the atomic bomb, a product of unprecedented technological innovation, rapid industrial-scale manufacturing, and unparalleled military deployment, shape U.S. foreign policy, the communities of workers who produced it, and society as a whole? And second, how has American society's perception of the bomb as a means of military deterrence in the Cold War era evolved under the influence of mass media, scientists, public intellectuals, and even the entertainment industry?" "In answering these questions, The Atomic Bomb and American Society sheds light on the collaboration of science and the military in creating the bomb, the role of women working at Los Alamos, the transformation of nuclear physicists into public intellectuals as the reality of the bomb came into widespread consciousness, the revolutionary change in military strategy following the invention of the bomb and the development of Cold War ideology, the image of the bomb that was conveyed in the popular media, and the connection of the bomb to the commemoration of World War II." "As it illuminates the cultural, social, political, environmental, and historical effects of the creation of the atomic bomb, this volume contributes to our understanding of how democratic institutions can coexist with a technology that affects everyone, even if only a few are empowered to manage it."--BOOK JACKET

"First presented as papers at a public conference commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the detonation of the first bomb, held in Oak Ridge, Tennessee July 15-17, 2005, and sponsored by the University of Tennessee Press and the University of Tennessee's Center for the Study of War and Society and Department of History"--Introd

Includes bibliographical references (p. [407]-425) and index

Introduction / Rosemary B. Mariner -- pt. 1. Context of American culture and the bomb. Sixty years and counting: nuclear themes in American culture, 1945 to the present / Paul S. Boyer -- pt. 2. Creating and confronting the bomb. To run with the swift: Vannevar Bush, James Conant, and the race to the bomb-How American science was drafted into wartime service / Peter K. Parides -- The Manhatten project revealed: local press response to the atomic bomb announcements, August-September, 1945 / George E. Webb -- Lost almost and caught between the fences: the women of Los Alamos, 1943-1945 and later / Mary Anne Schofield -- Over the radio yesterday I heard the starting of another war: women's wartime correspondence, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the end of World War II / Judy Barrett Litoff -- pt. 3. Containing and coping with the bomb. Selling the international control of atomic energy: the scientists' movement, the advertising council, and the problem of the public / Megan Barnhart -- Defending the American way and containing the atom: Ideology and U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy since 1945 / Shane J. Maddock -- Continuity of government measures for civil defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis / Tracy C. Davis -- Mightier than missiles: The rhetoric of civil defense for rural American families, 1950-1970 / Jenny Barker Devine -- Expecting the unexpected: nuclear terrorism in 1950s Hollywood films / Robert E. Hunter -- pt. 4. Culture and the bomb. Voices from the deep: Life and culture aboard U.S. Navy nuclear submarines during the Cold War / William David Freeman -- Exploding the Strangelove myth: Cold War nuclear weapons work and the testing times of William Ogle / Todd A. Hanson -- The early nuclear age and visions of future war / David M. Walker -- Oppenheimer and Rabi: American Cold War physicists as public intellectuals / Michael A. Day -- "Out in the open": popular representations of some American nuclear weapons in the early Cold War / Christopher John Bright -- pt. 5. Commemorating the bomb. The Oak Ridge International Friendship Bell / Edward W. Lollis -- The challenges of preserving America's nuclear weapons complex / Jason Krupar -- Bibliographical essay / G. Kurt Piehler

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